sound_of_music_maria_and_von_trapp_childrenAs the semester draws its last rattling breaths, your professors offer their wit and wisdom to sustain you through finals.

Bruce Cronin, American Foreign Policy, on cheating: “If you’re Jewish or you’re Catholic, this will eat away at your soul for the rest of your life. So don’t do it!”

Sunil Gulati, Principles of Economics, on the Columbia student’s responsibility to developing countries: “I used to think that the last lecture was so I could sleep at night…Turns out it’s not. It’s to make sure that you don’t sleep well at night.”

Joseph Patterson, Theories of the Universe: “So this could all point to an anthropic principle. Or it might signify that we all just have too much time on our hands. And with that, the course ends!”

Ryan Chaney, The Road: “I’m never teaching this class again.”

Kenneth Jackson, History of the City of New York: “I had a lecture planned for today, but I think I’m going to just go for a little more of a stream of consciousness type thing now.”

Richard Wortman, Imperial Russia, on the future of Russia under Putin: “All that remains is the legacy of the autocracy.”

Vincent Aurora, French Cultural Workshop: “I like Lacan. He slaps you in the face with…the phallus. [pause] It’s the last class. I don’t care what I say.”

James Applegate, Earth, Moon, and Planetson the causes of global warming: “Bovine flatulences…yes, cow farts.”

Gerald Curtis, Japanese Politics: “I have this weird hobby of reading yellow pages from phone books.”

Patricia Lindemann, The Science of Psychology: “Remember in doing your evaluations to be constructive with your comments.  Professors really do read them and work off of them, and it’s best if your teacher is not crying in the closet. So constructive, not cruel.”

Randall Balmer, Religion in American Culture, giving thanks to his students for actually showing up: “Today marks the end of my first 25 years of teaching at Columbia.  On my first day of teaching, I showed up to class and there was no one there and it was devastating, right out of grad school. Without you, I’d probably be stuck teaching Introduction to Comparative Religion or something stupid like that.”

John Magyar, Inorganic Chemistry, on Sleeping Beauty: “The only reasonable explanation was that the fairies were using cobalt salts.”

Richard Billows, The Ancient Greeks: “One can imagine a person’s arm getting somewhat tired after awhile if he’s been stabbing dead bodies over and over again.”

Brendan O’Flaherty, Urban Economics: “In other Economics classes they teach you that bonds are important. I teach you that going to the bathroom is important, which it is!”

Anna Catherina Musatti, Principles of Economics: “If I were a man they’d say, ‘Oh, he has balls!’”

George Saliba, Intro to Islamic Civilization: “Like the kids from Lake Wobegon, all of you will be above average.”